I’ve seen some old posts about this, but nothing recent. Here’s my dilemma:
Have a homestead shared among several family members that uses some SmartThings devices. We also have a full SmartThings set-up at home.
Devices integrated directly through the hub work like a dream. Devices that integrate through linked accounts (e.g., August, Nest, Arlo, Meross) are visible in both properties’ device list.
We have a dedicated iPad at the shared facility to use for streaming tv or music and for controlling automation. I’d like to understand how to hide devices attached to the opposite property. This way, when someone else is at the shared facility, they (or their kids) won’t be tempted to tap buttons marked “DO NOT USE” and cut all of my lights several miles away.
Alternatively, is there a way to create a “limited view” for guests?
I don’t want to create two fully separate accounts for everything as that creates a whole other set of challenges. Also, if it wasn’t supposed to support multiple homes, why is it so easy to switch between them?
We used to be able to separate accounts, but then smartthings changed the way it handled cloud to cloud authorization, and we lost that ability. Since it’s been a couple of years now and many individual customers have made the request, I don’t think it’s coming back anytime soon.
One popular option is to use a third-party dashboard like SharpTools or action tiles. Both now work with the current 2023 smartthings architecture. Both allow you to create custom dashboards, so you can just leave off the Devices You don’t want available from that location. People commonly use these, for example, so that the child in one room can’t turn off the lights in their sibling’s room.
You can make the custom dashboards simple or fancy depending on how much setup work you want to do.
The two companies have different business models, but both are popular in this community. Sharptools does have a free tier which might be all you need. And then they have a lot of advanced features, including a nice Rules engine, which you pay an annual subscription for.
ActionTiles has an initial free trial period And then you pay a single lifetime fee if you want to continue.
So you can try both and see if either one would meet your needs. You can find lots of discussions in the forum about them, and both companies have staff members who are active here if you have additional questions. Also, both have their own discussion forums.
Both work in almost any browser, so you can use pretty much any hardware device you want for the display
Both are good, but the features and pricing are different, so it just depends on your own preferences.
